Religious Studies News communicates important events of the field and examines critical issues in education, pedagogy, research, publishing, and the public understanding of religion. Sometimes that involves sharing what others are writing about the field and these issues.
In Open Tabs, RSN editors will share the articles they’ve been reading and thinking about. If you have recommendations for articles, podcasts, or other media you’ve recently encountered that examine issues that fall under the purview of RSN, email us.
What We’re Reading
UNDER | GODS 250 YEARS | 25 ESSAYS
Published July 4, 2026, in American Religion
To mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the journal American Religion has published a landmark digital collection, “Under Gods,” exploring the breadth and complexity of religious life in the United States.
“Under Gods” is published by the Indiana University journal American Religion, in collaboration with the Center for the Understanding of Religion in American History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It was edited by project lead Peter Manseau; American Religion co-editors Cooper Harriss and Sarah Imhoff; and managing editors Andrew Ali Aghapour and Brook Wilensky-Lanford; with web design by Megan Goodwin and image research by Sabina Ali.
The site was created with support from the Henry Luce Foundation.
From the preamble to the collection:
“‘Under Gods’ is a narrative examination of the place of the plural in the history of the United States. Leading up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we asked writers, scholars, and artists to tell stories of religious people, communities, and events throughout those two and half centuries. Each of the resulting twenty-five essays gathered here corresponds to a single decade; together they explore spiritual diversity as foundational and essential to American religious life from 1776 to today. Highlighting moments well-known or obscure, beliefs and practices held by multitudes or relatively few, this portrait is necessarily partial, but it provides a better understanding of the whole.
Rather than being constrained by the historical eras that anchor them, the stories told here often reach across time. The writings of an enslaved Senegalese Muslim find unexpected resonance with a twentieth-century Sufi community in South Carolina. A Catholic priest killed during the Mexican Cristero War becomes the patron saint of undocumented immigrants generations later. The objects through which these histories emerge—Shaker boxes, Chinese restaurant altars, a book of Harlem Renaissance spirituals, Amish solar panels, and Dallas Cowboys merchandise featuring a Sikh call to sovereignty—all twist our lenses of the past to create a kaleidoscopic view of the nation’s present.
True to their pluralistic subject, the essays differ markedly in genre and tone. Some unfold as tragedies, others as mysteries or tales of invention. Episodic and idiosyncratic rather than comprehensive, they are intended as a catalyst to further conversations.”
“Celebrating the Mysterious Depth of Human Life, Magnifica Humanitas Misses an Opportunity”
Published June 2, 2026, in Religion Dispatches
Jacob J. Erickson thoughtfully critiques the first encyclical of Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica humanitas:
“It would be easy, but mistaken, to view the shift of themes in this encyclical as a fresh start, a papal blank slate obsessed with the ‘new thing’ of tech. The Pope’s engagement with digital technology beckons the news cycle, and indeed has captivated most readers since last week. Whereas Pope Francis championed responses to climate crises and the poor, Pope Leo XIV now boldly faces head-on the power of the AI boom and its shadowy barons. Out with the old, in with the new.
Yet what is striking to me about this encyclical is that the writing is less fixated on disembodied technology than the myth of its phantasmic reality. The words detail more about tech’s ecosocial texture, extractive histories, and visions of the built environment. Here, Leo takes multiple cues from Francis, even if the letter is truly his own tone. This encyclical, then, is profoundly ecological, ecosocial in its messaging.
Magnifica Humanitas bears witness to the planet by expressing itself as a concrete exercise in the deep legacy of Catholic Social Teaching alongside Pope Francis’ “integral ecology.” Such ecology is concerned with the bigger picture of the common good. One is not to consider the human or any singular problem in isolation.”
“Editor’s Letter: Narratives, Myths, and Lies”
Published June 3, 2026, in The Revealer
Brett Krutzsch, editor of The Revealer, reflects on the White House’s “Rededicate 250” event and the power behind false myths:
“As those who study or think about religion know, myths are powerful devices. They can unite communities, convey core values, cover up differences, and present coherence and uniformity when they never existed. For these and many more reasons, myths can be dangerous. As they get repeated, they appear real, true, and undeniable. That is why we mustn’t let certain myths take hold, like the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. Instead, we need to tell other narratives, and repeat them often and vociferously, to demonstrate that America was founded as a place for religious freedom and without an established preference for Christianity. That is, after all, the truth. It is not merely a competing idea. Part of our crucial work today is to make sure we do not forget the truths we know as we become inundated with false myths.”
“Viral Bible School Execution Skit Isn’t Just a Symptom of the Christian Nationalist Moment”
Published July 15, 2026, in Religion Dispatches
Rita Nakashima Brock and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite investigate the deep roots the violence displayed in a recent viral bible school skit has in Christian atonement theology:
“Recently, a Vacation Bible School skit at a Lexington, Kentucky, church drew national attention after a video showed men dressed as soldiers entering a sanctuary carrying airsoft-style rifles and “executing” a person who portrays the devil. The murder occurs on the chancel steps as a pastor presides over it. He leads the children to cheer repeatedly, “Take him out! Blow him up!” Clothed in a black hoodie, “the devil” writhes on the ground in agony, seems to die, and is carried out a side door by the shooters. Very young children, who often cannot distinguish a simulation from reality, are present in the crowd.
Children are not born haters; they have to be trained to believe that God sanctions violence against what they’re taught to hate. Such graphic enactments groom children to accept lethal violence. While this particular event might seem shocking, it has deep roots in Christian atonement theology, the idea that someone must violently suffer for sin; God required Jesus to be tortured and murdered on the cross to redeem sinful humanity and save us from eternal torment in hell.”
“A journalist’s journey through faith and identity”
Published July 6, 2026, in The Conversation
Kalpana Jain recounts her journey through faith and identity in the context of attending a Faith Angle gathering in Park City, Utah:
“Alongside experiencing the uniqueness and piety of Islam in Malaysia during the year, I had visited sacred spaces associated with a wide range of traditions – Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Christian – across the region. As I returned to my home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, parts of me seemed to remain behind. Like many immigrants who live between worlds, I found myself asking: Where do I belong?
That question was still with me when I arrived at the St. Regis Deer Valley in Utah for a gathering of journalists and scholars organized by Josh Good through the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program.
The conference set out to explore how religious communities and convictions shape politics and public life in America. Yet beneath the discussions of religious disaffiliation, religious identity and the coming midterms lay a deeper concern: the search for meaning and belonging when many religious sources of moral orientation are declining.”
“A faithful call to abolish ICE”
Published July 17, 2026, in Religion News Service
Jim Wallis pens an op-ed arguing that as people of faith, we must abolish ICE:
“Last week, after the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, the Department of Homeland Security said the victim was targeted because he “resembled” the person they were seeking. And for an operation that uses shameless racial profiling, of course he did, because he was brown. These tragic killings confirm that in the United States, all immigrants of color, regardless of legal status, are in imminent danger.
Araujo, 52, was from Mexico, but had been calling the U.S. home for 35 years, and his family told The New York Times he was likely months away from receiving a work permit. He worked as a homebuilder, supported his family, and on July 7, he was driving members of his construction crew to work when he was racially profiled and killed by ICE. His eldest son, Ronaldo Salgado, spoke through tears about the father taken from him and his siblings, and the husband his mother will not see again.”
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